Last week, President Obama signed historic health care reform legislation into law — but his legislative success doesn’t seem to have helped his image with the American public.

The latest CBS News Poll, conducted between March 29 and April 1, found Americans unhappier than ever with Mr. Obama’s handling of health care – and still worried about the state of the economy.

President Obama’s overall job approval rating has fallen to an all-time low of 44 percent, down five points from late March, just before the health bill’s passage in the House of Representatives. It’s down 24 points since his all-time high last April. Forty-one percent of those polled said they disapproved of the president’s performance.

More results from this CBS News Poll will be released in Friday’s broadcast of the Evening News with Katie Couric, which airs at 6:30 p.m. Eastern.

When it comes to health care, the President’s approval rating is even lower — and is also a new all-time low. Only 34 percent approved, while 55 percent said they disapproved.

Americans are still worried about the economy, with 84 percent telling CBS they thought it was still in bad condition. However, even that high number represents an improvement: nine in ten thought the economy was bad during the last half of 2008 and at the beginning of 2009, when Mr. Obama assumed the Presidency.

Concern about job loss remains high; slightly more Americans now (35 percent) than in February (31 percent) were “very concerned” that someone in their household would lose a job. Nearly six in ten Americans said they were at least “somewhat concerned” about a job loss.

As has often been the case, lower-income Americans tend to be the most concerned about job loss.

This concern is reflected in yet another low approval rating — this time for the President’s handling of the economy. Just 42 percent said they approved of how President Obama is handling the economy, only one point above January’s all-time low. Half of the public disapproves.

It gets even better as we learn how truly outraged independents are over the incredibly polarizing and partisan tactics this incredibly dishonest, cynical weasel has used to “fundamentally transform” a free market economy into socialism. From the Washington Times:

President Obama and congressional Democrats face an uphill climb to reclaim the support of independent voters who vaulted them to the White House and huge majorities in Congress in 2008.

At the end of the bitter, intensely partisan battle to pass Mr. Obama’s health care overhaul plan, independent voters, once captivated by hopeful campaign promises, are feeling burned and appear eager to oust Democrats in November’s midterm elections.

This is the time that we need to take a page from both Barack Obama AND Sarah Palin.

First we need to get “Fired up, ready to go.” And then we need to RELOAD before getting fired up again. And again. And again. And again, until the worst and most radical and most unAmerican president in history is long gone to go along with the Democrat disaster in Congress.

Obama and the Democrats KNEW that ObamaCare was reviled by the American people; and then they usurped the will of the people and used every parliamentary trick in the book to impose it anyway.

The yield on 10-year Treasuries – the benchmark price of global capital – surged 30 basis points in just two days last week to over 3.9pc, the highest level since the Lehman crisis. Alan Greenspan, ex-head of the US Federal Reserve, said the abrupt move may be “the canary in the coal mine”, a warning to Washington that it can no longer borrow with impunity. He said there is a “huge overhang of federal debt, which we have never seen before”.

David Rosenberg at Gluskin Sheff said Treasury yields have ratcheted up 90 basis points since December in a “destabilising fashion”, for the wrong reasons. Growth has not been strong enough to revive fears of inflation. Commodity prices peaked in January and US home sales have fallen for the last three months, pointing to a double-dip in the housing market.

And why is this?

The trigger for last week’s sell-off was poor demand at Treasury auctions, linked to the passage of the Obama health care reform. Critics say it will add $1 trillion (£670bn) to America’s debt over the next decade, a claim disputed fiercely by Democrats.

The unemployment rate “is still terribly high and is going to stay unacceptably high for a very long time,” Geithner said.

Of course, if unemployment is going to stay “unacceptably high” for “a very long time,” you’re pretty much accepting it, aren’t you?

You can accept an “unacceptably” awful one-party rule that is destroying the American way of life chunk by chunk, or you can refuse to accept the “unacceptable” and vote these radicals out of office in seven months.

Democrats are betting that you are too stupid and too short-sighted to hold them accountable.

You’ve got to be amazed at the Democrats’ arrogance, incompetence, and ignorance.

They are apparently having their version of Casablanca’s Captain Renault moment: “I’m shocked, shocked to find that gambling is going on in here!”

Only, in this Democrat-retelling, Captain Renault instead says, “Gambling? There’s no gambling going on here! It’s just gaming, not GAMBLING! Why, it’s nothing more than two parties engaging in a predictive enterprise, in which the accurate prediction is rewarded in a monetary transaction. But gambling? You’re a violent racist to call that ‘gambling’!!!

Oh, my goodness. I think you just spat on me! It’s just the kind of thing you haters who attack us as “gamblers” would do!”

It’s been a banner week for Democrats: ObamaCare passed Congress in its final form on Thursday night, and the returns are already rolling in. Yesterday AT&T announced that it will be forced to make a $1 billion writedown due solely to the health bill, in what has become a wave of such corporate losses.

This wholesale destruction of wealth and capital came with more than ample warning. Turning over every couch cushion to make their new entitlement look affordable under Beltway accounting rules, Democrats decided to raise taxes on companies that do the public service of offering prescription drug benefits to their retirees instead of dumping them into Medicare. We and others warned this would lead to AT&T-like results, but like so many other ObamaCare objections Democrats waved them off as self-serving or “political.”

Perhaps that explains why the Administration is now so touchy. Commerce Secretary Gary Locke took to the White House blog to write that whileObamaCare is great for business,“In the last few days, though, we have seen a couple of companies imply that reform will raise costs for them.” In a Thursday interview on CNBC,Mr. Locke said “for them to come out, I think is premature and irresponsible.”

Meanwhile, Henry Waxman and House Democrats announced yesterday that they will haul these companies in for an April 21 hearing because their judgment “appears to conflict with independent analyses, which show that the new law will expand coverage and bring down costs.”

In other words, shoot the messenger. Black-letter financial accounting rules require that corporations immediately restate their earnings to reflect the present value of their long-term health liabilities, including a higher tax burden. Should these companies have played chicken with the Securities and Exchange Commission to avoid this politically inconvenient reality? Democrats don’t like what their bill is doing in the real world, so they now want to intimidate CEOs into keeping quiet.

On top of AT&T’s $1 billion, the writedown wave so far includes Deere & Co., $150 million; Caterpillar, $100 million; AK Steel, $31 million; 3M, $90 million; and Valero Energy, up to $20 million. Verizon has also warned its employees about its new higher health-care costs, and there will be many more in the coming days and weeks.

As Joe Biden might put it, this is a big, er, deal for shareholders and the economy. The consulting firm Towers Watson estimates that the total hit this year will reach nearly $14 billion, unless corporations cut retiree drug benefits when their labor contracts let them.

Meanwhile, John DiStaso of the New Hampshire Union Leader reported this week that ObamaCare could cost the Granite State’s major ski resorts as much as $1 million in fines, because they hire large numbers of seasonal workers without offering health benefits. “The choices are pretty clear, either increase prices or cut costs, which could mean hiring fewer workers next winter,” he wrote.

The Democratic political calculation with ObamaCare is the proverbial boiling frog: Gradually introduce a health-care entitlement by hiding the true costs, hook the middle class on new subsidies until they become unrepealable, but try to delay the adverse consequences and major new tax hikes so voters don’t make the connection between their policy and the economic wreckage. But their bill was such a shoddy, jerry-rigged piece of work that the damage is coming sooner than even some critics expected.

The New York Times reported that Obama’s core promise was his pledge that he would transcend the starkly red-and-blue politics of the last 15 years, end the partisan and ideological wars, move beyond the divisive politics of Washington, and build a new governing majority that brought Democrats, independents and Republicans together. And now we know that his fundamental, core promise was just a total lie, a massive lie of the devil. Not only did he not try to become a unifying figure, as he cynically and deceitfully promised, but he became the most polarizing president in the history of the nation. And that broken promise is now erupting into open rage like we have never seen in this country.

Obama is trying to demonize Republicans for the anger, but HE WAS THE ONE WHO PROMISED TO BE A TRANSCENDENT FIGURE. HE WAS THE ONE WHO LIED.

Democrats have obfuscated every fact with spin and lies, and every single truth teller they could not bribe or intimidate they have tried to destroy.

Democrats can pass a pile of stinking lies on a 100% partisan ideological vote, but what they can’t do is make that pile of stinking lies that comprise ObamaCare actually work. The Democrats health care law is already an open disaster, and it will continue to grow into a bigger and bigger disaster no matter how many congressional kangaroo courts they hold to demonize businesses who reported that their costs will skyrocket under this evil bill.

Obama said if you liked your health care you could keep it. ABC was reporting that that promise was questionable back in July of last year. Now it is a proven lie. It was just another whopping lie of the devil all along. Businesses are taking hits in the millions and even in the billions of dollars. And one of them after another is going to start dumping their retirees into Medicare as the cost of offering private insurance plans soar under ObamaCare.

“So what’s happening at this company tells us a larger story about what’s happening with our nation’s economy — because, in many ways, you can measure America’s bottom line by looking at Caterpillar’s bottom line.”

In that address, Obama provided us with a barometer, a measure, a way to know whether legislation is good or bad in microcosm.

And judging by Obama’s VERY OWN STANDARD, his health care legislation is absolutely terrible:

Farm equipment maker Deere & Co (DE.N) expects after-tax expenses to rise by $150 million this year as a result of the healthcare reform law President Barack Obama signed this week.

Most of the higher expense will come in Deere’s second quarter, the company said on Thursday. The expense was not included in the company’s earlier 2010 forecast, which called for net income of about $1.3 billion.

The charge is expected to be a one-time cost, but Caterpillar has argued that higher taxes and other potential cost increases related to insurance coverage mandates in the legislation will hinder the company’s recovery this year after a 75% plunge in income during 2009.

“From our point of view, a tax increase like this cannot come at a worse time,” said Jim Dugan, a Caterpillar spokesman.

Although the tax doesn’t take effect until 2011, the company said it is required to recognize the impact in the period in which the law was signed. Industry analysts estimated the charge at about 13 cents a share.

…due to the varying effective dates included in the legislation, we expect that Verizon’s costs will increase in the short-term. These cost increases are primarily driven by two provisions.

The first is a provision that affects the Medicare Part D subsidy for prescription drug coverage. Because Verizon offers retiree prescription drug coverage today, the government provides a 28 percent subsidy to help offset the financial burden of offering that coverage. The subsidy was intended to help employers continue to offer prescription drug coverage for retirees so that these retirees would not have to use the Government Medicare Part D program. However, changes affecting the Part D subsidy will make it less valuable to employers, like Verizon, and as a result, may have significant implications for both retirees and employers.

Let’s take a closer look at Caterpillar and what they say about ObamaCare, since Obama himself said what affected Caterpillar would affect the country as a whole:

Dow Jones Newswires | Caterpillar Inc. said the health-care overhaul legislation being considered by the U.S. House of Representatives would increase the company’s health-care costs by more than $100 million in the first year alone.

In a letter Thursday to House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) and House Republican Leader John Boehner of Ohio, Caterpillar urged lawmakers to vote against the plan “because of the substantial cost burdens it would place on our shareholders, employees and retirees.” Caterpillar, the world’s largest construction machinery manufacturer by sales, said it’s particularly opposed to provisions in the bill that would expand Medicare taxes and mandate insurance coverage. The legislation would require nearly all companies to provide health insurance for their employees or face large fines.

The Peoria-based company said these provisions would increase its insurance costs by at least 20 percent, or more than $100 million, just in the first year of the health-care overhaul program.

“We can ill-afford cost increases that place us at a disadvantage versus our global competitors,” said the letter signed by Gregory Folley, vice president and chief human resources officer of Caterpillar. “We are disappointed that efforts at reform have not addressed the cost concerns we’ve raised throughout the year.”

Business executives have long complained that the options offered for covering 32 million uninsured Americans would result in higher insurance costs for those employers that already provide coverage. Opponents have stepped up their attacks in recent days as the House moves closer toward a vote on the Senate version of the health-care legislation.

A letter Thursday to President Barack Obama and members of Congress signed by more than 130 economists predicted the legislation would discourage companies from hiring more workers and would cause reduced hours and wages for those already employed.

Caterpillar noted that the company supports efforts to increase the quality and the value of health care for patients as well as lower costs for employer-sponsored insurance coverage.

“Unfortunately, neither the current legislation in the House and Senate, nor the president’s proposal, meets these goals,” the letter said.

Obama said it himself: “You can measure America’s bottom line by looking at Caterpillar’s bottom line.” And thanks to ObamaCare, Caterpillar’s bottom line pretty much stinks on ice. Along with many other companies such as John Deere and Verizon.

In a study prepared for the Americans for Tax Reform Foundation, the Beacon Hill Institute found that the current proposal before Congress to reform the nation’s health care system will destroy up to 700,000 jobs over a ten-year period. The study uses a more realistic baseline from the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services to refute the claim made by the Center for American Progress that PPACA will create up to 400,000 jobs per year over the coming decade.

Rep. John Dingell, known as “the dean of the House” given the fact that his tenure in the House of Representatives extends to 1955, when he inherited the seat from his father, gave us the REAL reason for ObamaCare:

“The harsh fact of the matter is when you’re going to pass legislation that will cover 300 [million] American people in different ways it takes a long time to do the necessary administrative steps that have to be taken to put the legislation together to control the people”

It certainly wasn’t to build a strong economy or create jobs. Businesses are going to be too busy ducking and covering and paying taxes and complying with costly new regulations to worry about expanding. And every new hire will be a fiscal millstone around the necks of employers who will have to pay increasingly high taxes on every employee to satisfy ObamaCare.

It’s becoming apparent that the “death panels” are for businesses every bit as much as they will ultimately be for senior citizens who will die due to medical neglect when their health care resources get rationed.